A Summer Afternoon Pilgrimage To Rhu

 

‘Will yo’ come o’ Sunday morning’,

For a walk o’er Winter Hill.

Ten thousand went last Sunday,

But there’s room for thousands still!”

 

“O the moors are rare and bonny,

And the heather’s sweet and fine,

And the road across this hill top,

Is the public’s – Yours and mine!”

 

Yesterday (21st of June) was the Summer Solstice and at this time of year on the longest day, I like to do two things – Read the enchanting ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ chapter from ‘The Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame which perfectly encapsulates the ethereal loveliness of midsummer and go off on a longish ramble in the far-off (or nearby) countryside.



This year, rather than a midsummer hike, I decided to take the short ferry journey from my home in Gourock across the Firth of Clyde to Kilcreggan and cycle around Gare Loch to the bucolic village of Rhu near Helensburgh, where the great social reformer and Congregationalist minister Thomas Arthur Leonard established a holiday home at Ardenconnel House in Rhu as a place to provided working people with access to the great outdoors.



Ardenconnel is a B-listed Victorian Manor house which sits above Rhu overlooking Gare Loch and the house was purchased by Pastor Leonard in 1899 on behalf of the Co-operative Holidays Association which he had formed a few years earlier to offer factory workers an opportunity to enjoy the idyllic countryside. At one time there were quite a few big house dotted around the West Coast of Scotland which had been established by the Churches to provide a ‘Fresh air fortnight’ for poor children from the slums.



Indeed, one of the unique aspects of this country’s Christian Socialist heritage is its relationship with the countryside; this is in part, due to the fact that our movement has its origins in the pastoral romanticism William Morris and John Ruskin rather than the cold materialism of Karl Marx. Yet, this love of nature does not only have its roots in the Utopian dreams of Gentlemen Socialists or parlour room Fabians.



Rather, a nostalgic longing for a return to a pre-enclosure society also came from within the (once agrarian, then industrial) working class itself and this yearning often manifested itself politically, in events like the Winter Hill 1896 mass trespass near Bolton and the 1932 Mass trespass of Kinder Scout in the Peak District of Derbyshire.



More so, the Dissenter and Nonconformist Christianity which found favour among much of the industrial and rural British working classes, can be understood as an ‘outdoors religion’ akin to a Prophet banished from the city and caste out to the remote backwoods, like John the Baptist or as the King James Bible puts it in Isaiah 40:3 "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness".



Even George Fox the founder of Quakerism, when clerics and ornate Church buildings could not fill his spiritual void, would turn to scripture and prayer, often in the sanctuary of hollow trees and wild places, just as Fox also felt that God led him to ascend Pendle Hill where he had a vision of many souls coming to Christ.



It’s also worth noting that the aforementioned Thomas Arthur Leonard was, as well as being the founder of the Co-operative Holidays Association, also a Christian Socialist who helped to establish the Youth Hostels Association and the Ramblers Association while at the same time being involved with the Independent Labour Party, often speaking at rallies alongside Kier Hardie, who was himself a Congregationalist Christian.

For many years Leonard was under the influence of his fellow Congregationalist Minister John Brown Paton from Galston in Ayrshire, who was equally devoted to social reform through his creation of the National Home Reading Union and his involvement in the cooperative banks movement.



However, Thomas Arthur Leonard eventually became a Quaker and a committed Christian Pacifist and as such, we can safely say that he would be appalled by the presence of the Trident Nuclear Submarine Base now situated just a few miles up the road from Ardconnel House.



Yet, when Leonard created his ‘holiday fellowships’ for leisure and education, he very much understood his holidays to be a continuation in the fine tradition Sunday School outings and Fair Holidays. Fair Holidays had their origins in the Holy Feast Days and local Saints Days which had existed for centuries and gave common folk a much needed rest and a chance to enjoy themselves and this fact is reflected in the Leonard’s choice of the Firth of Clyde as the location for his holiday house.



All most every town in Scotland had its own fair, traditional holiday periods celebrated in summer. The oldest of these ancient market days was of course, the Glasgow Fair, originally established by a charter from William the Lion in 1190, but latterly the last two weeks in July when factories and offices closed for summer holidays and everyone went "Doon the Watter" to Largs, Rothesay and Gourock.



Many of these market Fairs and Saints days still exist today and two of my favourites are Lilias Day in Kilbarchan and The Holy Fair in Mauchline which both continue to be a fun day out for the whole family. These fairs are referenced by Old Blind Dogs in their wonderful song ‘Lads O’ The Fair’.

Greenock celebrates its own fair next Friday on the 2nd of July, close to the summer solstice and has done for over three hundred and fifty years ever since Greenock received a charter from King Charles the First which conferred upon Greenock the right to hold an annual fair.



This year I was hoping that my own Greenock Fair weekend holiday would be a wee trip down to Conway in North Wales where Thomas Arthur Leonard died in 1948, maybe next year. So that I might climb Conway Mountain and offer a prayer of thanks for Leonard’s life and his witness for peace and see his Memorial plaque on the mountain which describes him as the Father of the Open-Air Movement in this country and bears the epitaph: "Believing that 'the best things any mortal hath are those which every mortal shares' he endeavoured to promote 'joy in widest commonality spread'



Even so, you might well ask; what relevance does any of this social history hold for us in 2021? Unfortunately many of the social ills which existed back then are remerging once again. Equally, many of the practical solutions to these social ills developed well over a hundred years ago still offer us part of the answer now.



For example, we still honour the struggles of the Tolpuddle Martyrs because those poor Methodist rural workers fought for a fair living wage and an end to casual labour and unsecure employment, just as we continue to resist the Gig Economy and support the Living Wage Campaign today.

Similarly, families on low incomes still require and deserve a decent break; this is especially true amid our current mental health crisis with far too many people suffering from depression and anxiety.



Worse, the ongoing Covid pandemic has increased the price of previously affordable holidays; Take a look at the current cost of a few nights in at a seaside B&B, caravan park or basic family hotel. All the people who used to go on exotic long-haul holidays are now stuck in the UK, meaning they're now taking the holidays which everyone else used to take; this demand has subsequently driven prices through the roof. So now all the families and individuals on lower incomes, who previously, could at least afford a few nights away somewhere, are now excluded from that small pleasure.



For me, the remedy to all the stress and worry of modern life remains the same as it did during Thomas Arthur Leonard time. What we now call a ‘person centred approach’ or a ‘holistic approach’ to the whole person, sounds somewhat similar to some of the solution developed by those early Christian Socialist pioneers whose thinking was broadly informed by five principles –



· Well being through outdoor activity (Body)

· Self improvement via parish reading, education and an intellectual life (Mind)

· Solidarity and self-reliance via civil society, associations and institutions (Community)

· Spiritual nourishment and comfort from Christianity (Spirit)

· Empowerment and emancipation through Socialism (Politics)



Most importantly our God given right to, not just to roam our ancient footpaths, but to own them, remain is an integral part of our political struggle, as Andy Wightman says – ‘We believe that we cannot create a more socially just Scotland without tackling land ownership. Half of the country’s privately owned land is held by just 432 owners and a mere 16 owners hold 10% of Scotland, we want to see more of Scotland’s land in the hands of more of Scotland’s people.’



Sure, we Christian Socialist are often seen as being socially conservative due to our love for tradition but this admiration for our heritage does not equate to forelock tugging, cap doffing undue deference to the landed gentry. As The Diggers leader Gerrard Winstanley once said ‘This earth divided, we will make whole, so it will be a common treasury for all’.



Finally, this Friday is the Greenock Fair weekend, so try and get a wee rest even if it’s just a few days away, or day trip or a long walk and enjoy the fair as our ancestors and forefathers once did. Because self-care and recuperation is important, as it says in The Bible –

‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.



He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.’